Description

2006 Bowman Chrome is a 224-card set released in August, 2006. This was the first year of the new MLB-mandated "rookie card" rules, and as a result, all the Bowman brands were forced into a realignment. Beginning in 2006, a player had to actually have played in a Major League game to appear in a MLB-licensed trading card set. Those players making their Major League debut in the current season (or late in the previous season) would be entitled to have a standardized "ROOKIE CARD" icon on their card.

In the case of the Bowman brands, whose stock-in-trade has been to feature hundreds of Minor League "prospects" in order to have their rookie cards years before they ever played in a Major League game (if ever), this meant that those players would now be featured in a Prospects "insert" -- an "insert" that just happens to look a lot like, and produced in roughly the same quantities as, the base set.